Biography of Ricardo Montalban

Ricardo Montalban Personal life

Ricardo Montalban was born in Mexico City, the son of Ricarda Merino and Jenaro Montalban, a store manager. He had a brother, actor Carlos Montalban, and a sister, Carmen. He is a practicing Roman Catholic and has said that his religion is the — most important thing —  in his life. He remains a Mexican citizen by choice, having never applied for American citizenship.

He married Georgiana Young, an actress, in 1944; they had four children. She was half-sister of the late actresses Sally Blane, Polly Ann Young, and Oscar-winner Loretta Young, who nicknamed her ‘Georgie’. Georgiana Young de Montalban passed away on November 13, 2007, at the age of 84.

Ricardo Montalban’s Career

Ricardo Montalban has stated that when he first arrived in Hollywood, studios wanted to change his name to Ricky Martin. He has frequently portrayed Asian characters – mostly of Japanese background (as in Sayonara and the Hawaii Five-O episode Samurai). His first leading role was the 1949 film Border Incident, with actor George Murphy. During the 1950s and 1960s, he was one of only a few actively working Hispanic actors.

Many of his early roles were in Westerns in which he played character parts, usually as an ‘Indian’  or as a ‘Latin Lover’. In 1950, he was cast against type, playing a Cape Cod police officer in the film Mystery Street. In 1957, he played Nakamura in the Oscar-winning film Sayonara.

From 1957 to 1959 he starred in the Broadway musical Jamaica, singing several light-hearted calypso numbers opposite Lena Horne.

In 1975, he was chosen as the television spokesman for the new Chrysler Cordoba. The car became a successful model, and over the following several years, was heavily advertised; his mellifluous delivery of a line praising its “soft Corinthian leather” upholstery, often misquoted as “rich Corinthian leather”, became famous and was much parodied, and Ricardo Montalban subsequently became a favorite subject of impersonators. Eugene Levy, for example, frequently impersonated him on SCTV. In 1986, he was featured in a magazine advertisement for the new Chrysler New Yorker.

Ricardo Montalban’s best-known television role was that of Mr. Roarke in the television series Fantasy Island, which he played from 1978 until 1984. For a while, the series was one of the most popular on television, and his character as well as that of his sidekick, Tattoo (played by Herve Villechaize), became pop icons. Another well-known role was that of Khan Noonien Singh in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, which was a reprisal of his role in the 1967 episode of Star Trek entitled “Space Seed” . There were some questions initially as to whether Ricardo Montalban had prosthetic muscles applied to his chest during filming of Star Trek II to make him appear more muscular, on account of his being over 60 years old at the time. Ricardo Montalban and others associated with the production of Star Trek II have disputed this, most notably Leonard Nimoy in his book I Am Spock, citing the fact that he was always physically active and worked out regularly, and those really were his muscles. The theory that those chest muscles were Montalban’s own is furthered by an episode of the “Biography” series about him, in which both William Shatner and Montalban’s son say Ricardo worked out strenuously to achieve that look. Film clips and shots throughout the episode bolster these claims, as they evidence a man in fine physical shape even into the 1970s.

Ricardo Montalban has appeared in many diverse films including The Naked Gun as well as two films from both the Planet of the Apes and Spy Kids series. In addition, he has appeared in multiple musicals, such as 1966’s The Singing Nun, also starring Debbie Reynolds. Over the course of his long career, he has played lead roles or guest starred in dozens of television series. Since 1993, Ricardo Montalban has had to use a wheelchair after a long-unresolved spinal injury from the 1951 film Across the Wide Missouri recurred.

The five stages of the actor

In several interviews and public speeches, Ricardo MontalbÃ¡n has described “the five stages of the actor” , which are as follows:

Who is Ricardo Montalban?

Get me Ricardo Montalban.

Get me a Ricardo Montalban type.

Get me a young Ricardo Montalban.

Who is Ricardo Montalban?

Death of Ricardo Montalban

On January 14, 2009, Ricardo Montalbán died at his home in Los Angeles at age 88. According to his son-in-law, Gilbert Smith, he died of “complications from advancing age”. The precise cause of death was later revealed to be congestive heart failure. He is buried next to Georgiana Young, his wife of 63 years, who predeceased him, at Holy Cross Cemetery, Culver City, California.

Ricardo Montalban Filmography

Five Were Chosen (1942) (a Spanish version was filmed the following year)